


Five Minute Fatalities

by MimitheBrave



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awkward, Canon, Confession, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Feels, Gen, His Last Vow, Holmes Brothers, Humour, M/M, Mind Palace, Mycroft's mission for Sherlock, Other, Pining, Sherlock disintegrating, Sherohn, Tumblr, confessing, five minutes, flight, mission, plane scene, spoilers for season 03
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:23:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MimitheBrave/pseuds/MimitheBrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fandom's favourite moment that never happened: Just before he gets on a plane to a secret government mission, Sherlock finally tells John he loves him. He then has to deal with the aftermath when the plane turns around only five minutes later...<br/>Set at the end of "His Last Vow". Inspired by the awesome tumblr blogs of Sherlock fans, written shortly after watching the final episode of season 3.</p><p>Excerpt:</p><p>“Sherlock is really a girl's name.”<br/>“We're not naming our daughter after you!”<br/>“Also, I don't have much experience in this area, but I think I might have cheated on my work and married you if Mary hadn't gotten there first.”<br/>"..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Minute Fatalities

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I started watching BBC's Sherlock, I tumblr'ed. A LOT. Every day. And I stumbled over a post that read "I need every fanfic of Sherlock actually telling John he loves him on that runway and having to come back and deal with it four minutes later", so I sat down and wrote it! I do apologize in advance for making it five minutes...

Five Minute Fatalities or The Five Minute Disintegration of Sherlock Holmes

 

* * *

 

The plane left the ground on silent tires, smoothly ascending to leave behind the small, waving figures on the landing strip. Sherlock didn't watch as they became even smaller; he was busy with slumping (in a dignified way) into his seat and lettting out morose little sighs in three-second intervals (elegantly).

 

He could not believe his own actions. It must have been the exhaustion from his hospital stay (not to mention his escape from there) finally materializing in the form of temporary derangement that prompted those words from him, letting sentiment get the better of him. There was no other explanation (although this train of thought would have been ruled out as beyond impossible in his old days; two years on the run change you, even if you may or may not be a true sociopath), and Sherlock was deeply disturbed by the outcome. He had been more than glad when the metal doors of the plane had shut behind him, which was surprising since only five minutes prior he had not wanted to leave at all.

 

It had become an unexpected blessing that he was not likely to return from this high priority mission that Mycroft assigned him to in exchange for his freedom. Although any exchange with Mycroft did not fit into his concept of freedom, since he would never seek his brother's help if there were other options available... but Sherlock had to admit that going to prison would've been terribly dull; while he often sought out the quiet of isolation for sessions of important mindwork, enforced exile was likely to drive him insane (he'd already had a taste of that for the last two years and found it not much to his liking). Better to accept the inconvenience that was Mycroft's intervention and jump headlong into danger, maybe burn himself on a case and be buried somewhere along the way.

 

* * *

 

 

Blinking digits on a flatscreen under the overhead compartment told him that the second minute of his flight had begun. So he had only endured one full minute of his own mortification and it had been enough to put him into this state? Deeply unsettling. Sherlock decided then and there that he would have to demonstrate to sentiment that logic still had the upper hand in his mind. Enforced reflection was the way to go.

 

In the cinema section of his mind palace, he took a seat in the front row and replayed his last conversation with John on the screen that was framed with red velvet curtains (it was called mind _palace_ for a reason).

 

First of all the request for a private moment, Mycroft yielding to it with the demonstrative énervément he always displayed towards Sherlock (it might have gotten more pronounced since he'd had to exercise all of his considerable influence to keep his brother a mostly free individual, but Sherlock still found he did not care enough to pay very much attention to the older Holmes. For all he knew, this was perfectly regular behavior). Anyway, both of them knew he'd have held on to the ground with his teeth if Mycroft tried to make him leave before he said his farewell to John. When asking something of Mycroft, Sherlock liked to think of it as declarations rather than demands.

 

John had looked as though he'd expected their bickering, a little annoyed shake of his head told Sherlock as much, but still relieved to get a goodbye from the man he had so selflessly made his best fried. It was typical of their friendship that John had gotten something else entirely, and that would probably bother him quite a lot in the future. Being friends with Sherlock usually meant more inconveniences than most people would accept in a friendship (but then again, John wasn't like 'most people' at all). On screen, the goodbye scene was shown in neat Medium Close Up shots.

 

 

 

> “Sherlock is really a girl's name.”

 

 

 

> “We're not naming our daughter after you!”

 

His long-term consulting best friend stared at him in mock exasperation, and the spark of laughter in his eyes as John gently acknowledged that this was the best goodbye he'd get from Sherlock (consulting self-declared sociopath) was what pushed the sociopath in question to say something utterly unsociopathic.

 

 

 

> “Also, I don't have much experience in this area, but I think I might have cheated on my work and married you if Mary hadn't gotten there first.”

 

The words rushed out in a hurry, like they knew that they were completely misplaced in this particular scene, likely to be edited out in post-production. Sherlock was distantly aware of a nervous hitch in his voice, as if he had almost stumbled over the sounds. The sentence hung between the two men, the letters rearranging themselves to show Sherlock the gravity of the error he'd just committed (spoken too quickly – forced nonchalance, meaning the person actually means what they are saying, but are afraid of their own bravado; not coming to the point until the last third of the sentence – the speaker feels an illogical need to justify themselves beforehand) in a laughably easy deduction of basic body language and choice of wording.

 

Three things happened then. John got stuck in his laugh although no sound was coming out and he looked like he was not breathing, Mary gave them a suspicious look from where she was standing at a respectful distance, and a very atypical short-circuit in Sherlock's mind resulted in him leaping away from John's immobile person, up the staircase and onto the plane.

 

* * *

 

There was no time to register if John (or Mary) made any move to stop him. Probably not (John certainly seemed too shocked to move anytime soon), and anyway the door slid shut behind him within seconds, a diligent male flight attendant in tasteful uniform closed it with a resounding click and ushered the dazed passenger to his seat, and the plane was picking up speed on the landing strip and left the ground before Sherlock had regained his bearings enough to blink, breaking his unseeing stare.

 

Now here he was, minute three of his journey was starting, and he was still getting nowhere in his attempts to understand that his idiotic half-confession had actually happened (it was a bit difficult lately, keeping mind cinema and reality separate) and to convince himself that he was not going into shock (never mind that he was gripping the seat in front of him rather tightly). It really was for the best that he was not to see John again anytime soon. Putting some miles between him and the words he had professed to a married man (married to not just anyone, but a pregnant ex-assassin, too), Sherlock couldn't have thought of a better solution for this unsightly dilemma.

 

Thank the British government for being in such deep distress they needed his consulting powers. He didn't know what he would do if he had to face John again right now (or ever again). But as that was an abstract thought as well as entirely unlikely, Sherlock immediately dismissed it from his mindspace.

 

Minute four finally found him progressing nicely in shoving the recollection of his unfortunate blunder under the metaphorical rug (the 'rug' in this metaphor was the lid of a rubbish container in the dustbin segment of the back section of the mind palace's recycling department, to be precise), and by the thirty-first second of it he was almost convinced that he'd now be able to focus on the mission. It really was obscenely lucky he got away like that. John would've asked so many unnecessary questions.

 

Well through minute five, just as Sherlock found he was actually looking forward to a new challenge, the flatscreen flared up with a live message transmission from Mycroft and the plane started to swerve back into landing course. Sherlock's hands were back on the seat, nails digging deep into the leather, as Mycroft's voice, heavy with uncharacteristic worry, resonated through the aisle.

 

“Change of plans, brother dear...”

 

Well wasn't he utterly f-

 

Sherlock nervously coughed, and his hard drive started overheating as the projector in the mind palace cinema caught fire.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are a Johnlock fan, you will have chewed your nails in anticipation of what Sherlock meant when he said he had to tell John something he wanted to say since forever. And you will have thought that it was "I love you" in some form, and you will have been disappointed and happy at the same time when it wasn't, because Mofftiss just know how to play the fandom without making the characters unbelievable. So this is for you, dear friend, for us to imagine what Sherlock never said although it's really quite obvious that he is capable of more than simple sentiment when it comes to John. This is for you and I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> I might write another chapter in the future, but I mostly wanted to write down those five minutes of Sherlock freaking out on that plane...  
> Thank you so much for reading, please leave a comment if you liked it :D


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